In bold below…
Psychology Research: Differences in Family Language Learning – Dr. Todd Risley
Family Effects:
David Boulton: Last night I talked with George Farkus and he made it really clear that from a sociological research point of view they’ve known for many, many years now, although they haven’t been able to get it across very widely, that eighty percent of the variation in public school performance result from family effects not school effects.
Dr. Todd Risley: Yes, absolutely.
David Boulton: It has less to do with the school. Which ties pretty closely into the .81 you mentioned earlier.
Dr. Todd Risley: Yes. Right.
Click here to read the rest of this long, but fascinating interview…
As readers of this blog know, it has been said that for every dollar spent on Early Childhood Education, seven tax dollars are saved down the line. This number comes from less crime, less welfare, less government assistance in general, etc. As I mentioned by linking to a previous Boston Globe article, until just this week, I never knew exactly why that was the case. For those of you “truth” seekers out there, who like hard data to make their arguments/points, here is the data, and the study that explains it all…
AFT: Publications: American Educator: Spring 2003: The Early Catastrophe
The Importance of Early Years Experience
We learned from the longitudinal data that the problem of skill differences among children at the time of school entry is bigger, more intractable, and more important than we had thought. So much is happening to children during their first three years at home, at a time when they are especially malleable and uniquely dependent on the family for virtually all their experience, that by age 3, an intervention must address not just a lack of knowledge or skill, but an entire general approach to experience.
Cognitively, experience is sequential: Experiences in infancy establish habits of seeking, noticing, and incorporating new and more complex experiences, as well as schemas for categorizing and thinking about experiences. Neurologically, infancy is a critical period because cortical development is influenced by the amount of central nervous system activity stimulated by experience. Behaviorally, infancy is a unique time of helplessness when nearly all of children’s experience is mediated by adults in one-to-one interactions permeated with affect. Once children become independent and can speak for themselves, they gain access to more opportunities for experience. But the amount and diversity of children’s past experience influences which new opportunities for experience they notice and choose.
Estimating, as we did, the magnitude of the differences in children’s cumulative experience before the age of 3 gives an indication of how big the problem is. Estimating the hours of intervention needed to equalize children’s early experience makes clear the enormity of the effort that would be required to change children’s lives. And the longer the effort is put off, the less possible the change becomes. We see why our brief, intense efforts during the War on Poverty did not succeed. But we also see the risk to our nation and its children that makes intervention more urgent than ever.
Click here to read on…
Looking for inspiration?
November 1, 2007
There are many mundane things that we have to do in life that are repetitive and uninspiring. Because of that, many of us look around for something to motivate us to continue on, or to strive to do better. Each person finds that motivation in a different way and in a different place. As we live our lives in this polarized society, occasionally something happens that even though large groups of people reside on different sides of the fence, tossing everything from tomatoes to attacks of personal destruction at each other, we see something unique and inspiring, causing us to step back, take a deep breath, and think to ourselves, “Wow.” Some of our eyes may even swell up a bit with some salty moisture. 
Paul Potts did that for me. I hope he will do the same for you…
COMPASS – Staffing Presentation
November 1, 2007
They teach our students, organize our school district programs and work to ensure student success, but what are the facts behind Mehlville School District staffing? Are our class sizes too large, are there programs that are under staffed, are our students missing out on important programs because of a lack of staff?
Learn more about and react to information about District staffing at the next COMPASS meeting:
Monday, Nov. 5
7 ~ 9 p.m.
Bernard Middle School
1054 Forder Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63129
